Slashdot Mirror
Playing God with Monsters
Howard writes "Horrified by "There Be Monsters Here" tales, some members of Congress called for a ban on DNA research in the mid '70s. Because those calls were rejected, millions of people around the world can now hope for DNA-based vaccines against AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases that have destroyed lives, communities and nations. Here's an illustration: The name of Joseph DeRisi keeps coming up in connection with deadly diseases. No, he's not a modern-day Typhoid Mary. Just the opposite. The University of California, San Francisco researcher is using his own custom-built DNA microarrays to look inside the "minds" of some serious serial killers. The "minds" are genes, and his home-brewed gene chips helped solve the SARS mystery earlier this year. Now, DeRisi has chosen malaria as his next victim. For the complete commentary, please go to Howard Lovy's NanoBot."
Didn't they also whine about that at the time?
Perhaps some observant legislator will draw a parallel between the benefits of DNA research that have already been reaped without any of the scary "uber-monster" side effects, and use that to help lift the ban on human stem cell research?
(hint hint)
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
you speak of the availablity of genetic research as being of benefit to humans.
But that same genetic research, without a doubt, will ensure that humans will be genetically engineered into another species vastly more advanced than us, thereby meaning our own de-facto extinction.
I have learned to be sceptical when people speak of 'progress' - progress to what? You wish to eliminate all human discomforts? You will eliminate humanity in the process.
I am a molecular biologist. I regularly read the news about criticisms of genetic engineering and stem cell research. I think that perhaps I should spend more time talking to my non-science friends about the positive things that have come from genetic engineering - insulin, the genetic testing (Tay Sachs screening is a good example), and so on. It is nice to read of more good examples in a not-completely biology setting.
God, shmod, I want my monkey-man!
just give me my steak in a grapefruit and i'd vote to pass any legislation to lift bans on genetic research!
peace,
-Grokent
With any luck these advances can be pointed out to those whom want to ban various froms of research in the future. Hopefully, people can come to realise that no research is "bad" or "evil", it just depends upon how the research is applied.
What we lack today is the same kind of scientific consensus-building process in ethical and policy matters. The inability of the research community to show that it cares about the moral, legal, political and social effects of its work has led to greater political scrutiny of that research, and acts such as the Executive Order limiting research into stem cells.
So, to raise the obvious question, what chance do we have for another Asilomar? Can the scientific establishment convince the public that it's not hell-bent on progress at any price, or is modern bio-science too fragmented, too much a creature of academic, corporate, and social specialization to speak with a united voice again?
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
"Old and cameltoed"? Projecting your fantasies much? Loser.
...or is this story a bunch of snide sweeping statements around not-so-much? I'm not discounting the bright future of various "nanotech" method of genetic analysis, but I have a hard time understanding why this is a top-level slashdot story.
What am I missing?
There's a good article at Wired about the current state of affairs in the battle against cancer.
t ml?pg=2
The End of Cancer (As we Know it)
Diagnosis. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Slow painful death. No more. A new era of cancer treatment is dawning. Meet three scientists who are using the revelations of the Human Genome Project to reshape medicine.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/cancer.h
They talk about micro-arrays, among other things.
John Kerry is a Joke!
Yeah, thank god there are few people in your country willing to question the status quo, eh? If people like the OP *did* move to America, things might get done and the country might improve.
Still, stick to your mindless patriotism. I'm sure your money going to kill innocent people in foreign countries will help you into heaven, eh?
Speaking as a representative for seial killers everywhere, I for one find the wording of this post offensive. No mere simple biological 'machine' could replicate the beauty and artistry of my vast bodies of work in the field of serial killing.
I for one hope Slashdot's editors issue an apology and a retraction.
...the world will know the glory of the FIVE-ASSED MONKEY!
Or maybe not. Call your congresspeoples and demand your five-assed monkey.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
aids is preventable
malaria is what, from water sometimes? ok thats a bad thing...
Is humanity determined by the specific genotype you happen to have now? Any more that by your fenotype? If you do a aesthetic surgery, you are changing yourself into something that you couldn't naturally be. That too would make you less human?
Changing your life habits to live longer and healthier don't make you less human. If that goal is achieved by changing your genes, would it be different? Or if you are made physically stronger so you don't need a fork lift truck to carry packages and now can do it manually, is that so important?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.... I think the idiots of the world have united on the message board today.
In a time when most research is purchased, processed, and patented- it's hardly surprising that there is a fundmental lack of coordination and cooperation. "Science" is an industry, and any industry must be a profitable venture. When your research has a monetary value attached to it, your employers aren't likely to encourage you to hold a public conference over it.
How many jobs have to be lost before you go away?
Answer: 1
Reason: When he loses his job, he will go away.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
As an official Mad Scientist, Dr. Clayton Forrester and his experiments on the Satellite of Love (continued by his mother Pearl) show the fallacy of your contention that no research is "bad" or "evil".
But both the uses of the research (applications) and the priorities of the research need to be moderated by moral, ethical and social concerns. In particular, I am very disturbed by the huge amount of money put into research that benefits the rich, and the lack of money put into research that benefits everyone. Medical research tends towards helping the rich more than anyone else. For example the amount of research on heart disease far outstrips the amount of research on malaria.
One book that really inspired me to question things is "In the Absense of the Sacred" by Jerry Mander. This book is more about technology than science, but it nicely demolishes the idea that technology (application of science) is neutral. Unfortunately the book is also very heavily political and does not question its own assumptions. Nevertheless, for anyone interested in these sort of questions, it is a must read. Another one is "Progress and its Problems" by Larry Laudan which is a classic in the history and philosophy of science. It takes a look at why research goes in certain directions. It is very well written and again, a must read for those interested in science in general and as it relates to politics.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Yeah, slashdot isn't American-centric enough anymore.
How about artificial tissue-based heart valves? This topic is fresh on my mind because my grandfather had open-heart surgery to replace his aortic valve replaced a week ago. They elected to go with 1 of the 3 mechanical options instead of a tissue-based replacement. The available tissue replacements consisted of two options: pig or human. Pig heart valves have an average life of 7-9 years (in part due to the average lifetime of a pig). Human valves last much longer; however the human donors are usually elderly and their valves have already seen their fair share of mileage. Finding a young human donor isn't as common as finding an elderly human donor. Since heart disease runs in my family, I'm quite interested in any and all medical advancements in this arena. Genetically engineered hearts sounds quite promising.
Anybody willing to make a bet with me on whether more people will be killed by genetically engineered weapons than are saved by genetically engineered cures during the 21st century?
There are a lot of things that are written in the Bible that are promptly ignored by people pushing their own religious ideals. My favorite, so oft forgotten dictum "Judge not, lest ye be judged".
Translation? Worry about saving yourself and less about what everyone else is up to.
> BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.... I think the idiots of the world have united on the message board today.
Welcome to Slashdot!
Are you enjoying your second day here?
The unofficial
I bet it would take a long time to snipe someone to death with an air rifle.
thwap!
OW - Quit it.
thwap!
OW - Quit it.
thwap!
What are you smoking? That's not in there at all.
I imagine that O'Reilly will be the first to publish the first book on programming humans. If you imagine the human body as a machine, you will note that its components are created by protein folding. A protein folds in one manner to react with a protein folded in another manner. Sooner or later, I imagine we will know what folds are required to create a liver or a kidney.
Perhaps we can download folding scripts from the internet to instruct sophisticated machinery to affect the folding in a protein culture. Perhaps not! Who knows? Sounds exciting to me!
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Luckily, our President is apparently consulting nutjobs like Van Impe to help us determine our foriegn policy. Finally, a foriegn policy that attempts to bring about the events foretold in Revelations! Or, at least the war and destruction parts.
Nice subtle addition of "niggers", "coons", and other crap into the original article, dumb shit. How this could be rated "Informative" is beyond me.
He also discusses the NOMAD software he uses for the bioibformatics, talks about how it's Linux based, and how "best of all, it's open source".
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
This guy shouldn't have to waste his time on curing malaria. It could have been dealt with years ago. We had a prevention for it: DDT. At least, we did until environmentalists used bad science and hype to stop the use of DDT, an action which has killed millions of people.
Actually the mindless couch potato "patriotism" (nationalism) has effectively replaced the patriotism that got this country started in the first place. If our current "patriotism" was around in 1776, we'd be pledging to the Union Jack singing "God Save the Queen." Dissenters would be burned as witches.
Wish I had thought of it :-)
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I'll never buy a book written by that pompous blowhard, "fair and balanced" my ass
dfvsdfvdfvdfvdv
I went through all the pages linked to in this article and the racist remarks were NOT in any of the copies of the article but this one.
Mod this racist jerk down. Don't forget to add this jerk to your foe list so you don't have to read any more of his racist remarks.
He just wanted an excuse to substitute "nigger" for human. ("he parasite, a single-cell organism known as a protozoan, goes through different phases in both its mosquito and ***nigger*** hosts.") http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/12/health/12MALA.ht ml?ex=1061265600&en=cbb7f9d4a0084265&ei=5040&partn er=MOREOVER
Any legitimate researcher can get stem cells with little or no effort. Thus, all the fuss is quite pointless.
There may be more strategy here than what it looks. As you say, you can get stem cells, and you are a legitimate researcher. Trying to heal children and trying to create mutants are two very different things. By already having the law on the books, the government can step in a and shut down an operation that is perversive to human kind, while giving dedicated, child healing doctors a blind eye.
That's my hunch, take it for what its worth.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
...learn to excrete something to fuck up microarrays.
watch terrible, terrible movies on the Satellite of Love with robot companions has inadvertently crossed the line at which research becomes something else? I must protest. This is exactly the sort of research that gets one elected to the Mad Scientist Academy(tm). That enables one to apply for Mad Scientist grants and loans. That gets one's face (or mask if so inclined) on the cover of "Mad Scientist Monthly".
Thanks to the power of modern genetics, we can provide something the world really needs. ...like a monkey with five asses!
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The fact of the matter is that there is no comprehensive understanding of how particular DNA encodings work or why, so most of the progress being made is happenstance, pure hit-and-miss.
This approach is successful for solving specific problems, but as a methodology applied over time it is akin to courting disaster. The short-term gains being made by some come at the expense of risk borne by us all over the long-term, and without our consent.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Country Active troops (thousands)
1. China 2820
2. USA 1372
3. India 1173
4. N. Korea 1055
5. Russia 1004
As of 2000, there's lots of us still in the game.
"My favorite, so oft forgotten dictum "Judge not, lest ye be judged". " Exactly. I'm sick of being pigeon-holed because of people manipulating the text and extrapolating to extremes, and not living up to their selective standards.
To write off the potential for bad things to happen through our knowledge of DNA, is as silly as writing off it's potential good. The good and the bad are both there to be used, it's just a matter of the people who have the knowledge to manipulate it. Knowledge and technology are power, but that power is amoral, it's up to the wielder of that power how to use it and there's no physical law prevent somebody for using it for the wrong reasons.
Eventually somebody will have the knowledge and the will to use this power destructively. Yes we also get many benefits, and so the double edged sword of technology swings as usual.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Is that slashdot community really that fucking lazy to not only not RTFA, but also to not read this fucker's comment before modding it up? Stupid people amaze me.
Poor Malaria, I knew you well.
Heh, uh, I mean, I didn't know you at all... *cough*. Nervous laughter.
Well, then, good riddance.
While I like Microarrays, they have a number of drawbacks:
- Noisy, the signal to noise ratio is almost unusable, unless you have REALLY BIG changes in RNA expression ( which is what they are measuring ). In the case of SARS I imagine that the differences were pretty high, so that it was relativley easy to detect the affected genes.
- Sequence, in order to make an array, or "chip", one needs to do a whole-cell extract for the target organism, extract the RNA, reverse-transcribe it, sequence it, figure out where on the sequence it is, make sure it isn't a spliced form of some other gene, then spot it onto a slide. Basically you get the EST library. Not easy to do, still kinda unreliable.
All accounted for, I don't think that anyone is to the point of making monsters or playing god. In order to do that, we first need to figure out how to get cells to change their DNA which we are still at least 50-75 years away from doing.Here's a nice image of the group to gaze upon while you contemplate the four killers of mankind. Since untold millions were killed in the last century due to war alone, I doubt that advances in medicine will have an impact overall. Sure, then rich that can afford treatment will benefit, but the vast majority of humankind will not.
hey the perfect cure for SPAM!!! No need to buy perfection, just make it!
It's because poor people can't (or won't) regulate or control their fucking reproduction (no pun) in any way. Catholics aside, most middle to upper class people I know have only one or two kids. Most poorer people I know have at least 3 kids already and they're only in their early 20s. I work with homeless single moms, I see this shit every day.
That being said, over-population will become an even bigger problem because now folks are going to get less diseases and live even longer. And of course, left-wingers would fucking freak out if the gubbamint told citizens they can't have more than 1 or 2 kids. (and yet they also freak out with companies withhold medicines...which way do you want it, huh? I think they just like to feel morally outraged)
As far as your example of heart disease goes, I fail to see the relevance. Poor people get heart disease as much as the rich, if not more. They have less healthy eating habits, and are more likely to smoke or use drugs. (This is in America mind you, where malaria doesn't happen all to often anyway) Number one killer: Heart disease. Number two: cancer. Number three: diabetes. (i think) Note that all three can be controlled or prevented to some degree with lifestyle changes, as opposed to medication.
P.S. the people that modded you as a troll are retards. You may be over-stating your case a bit, but hardly trolling.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
He's inside your pants.
"Now, DeRisi has chosen malaria as his next victim."
Until there is some breakthrough here DDT should be used to save lives. Over 1 million of the 300 million people infected with malaria each year worldwide die. There is not a single peer-reviewed, repeatable study showing any adverse effect on health of humans from the use of DDT.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
how many cliches can I handle in one article?
I passed the Turing test.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
That my army of xenophobic, AK-47 toting illiterates can out-kill your genetically-engineered disease, at least in the short term. My point is, people are going to find ways to kill large numbers of other people, biotech or no. It'd be a lot easier for some wack-jobs, terrorist or rogue state variety, to make dirty bombs or truck-nukes than to engineer a whole new disease.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Oh, so it's only the scary, bad scifi movie stuff that's proven, not the benefits?
I only have two questions for you: one, what is your relationship to the pharmaceutical industry? You seem to know an awful lot about us. And two, what exactly is it that you are proposing? That we forget what genetics is?
sic transit gloria mundi
They killed a perfectly good baboon (of which there are few) to temporarily prolong the life of a human infant (of which there are very many).
Freedom: "I won't!"
By using this process the bark is converted into a fuel source and the sap is a semi conductor... forming a simple circuit that acts as an AND or OR gate. We still haven't figured out a NOT or XOR gate but we're working on it. So far speed is about comparable to a Cray YMP, or SGI Indigo2 R8000 (Rare model with a 75mhz R8000 CPU, one of the most efficient FPUs per cycle ever made)
More details will be posted soon. Be sure to check MikeGreenChallenge.com regularly for updates.
Pure research I feel is research that is skull sweat, and its found mostly in theroy and mathmatics. In other words I feel that pure research is just thoughts and ideas being kicked around.
Applied research is when you go out with the concepts from the pure research and try to apply them.
*Takes a moment to kick self for not mentioning this*
Now to define (defend) my thoughts, pure research I belive should be unresticted, because by my definition no harm can come from just thoughts and ideas. Now, applied research is different, because of the nature of actively trying out ideas, and seeking ways to apply them. And thus there are somethings that do not need to be researched, and there are some ways that things should not be researched. Of course there also comes into play the problem of when dose something cease to be pure research and becomes applied (active) research, because in some areas - such as computing - the mere point of putting the idea on paper is a form of doing applied research on it.
So in summary, I belive that just sitting around thinking up new ideas and theories should be totaly unrestricted. However, in the nature of applied research, I belive that the scientist should have a good deal of freedom, however I would hope that there would be no need to prevent or to stop a scientists research because what they are doing is unethical or dangerous to people or the enviroment.
However, I am aware what most of what I think is just wishful thinking.
On a side note. Yes, I know that my definitions of pure and applied research are skewed and not the text book definitions, but I tend to be abit unusual in how I view the world
Okay, I work with Microarrays. Here's how they work. Somebody prepares tissue and puts on the actual array somehow. He cooks this and scans it. The information gets dumped into a big binary file that gets parsed into small file. This is the "CEL" file, in Affy terminology. This is a text file with some quality control information. It can be easily processed into a two dimensional array of doubles. That's the easiest way to think of it.
We're limited to about 20,000 genes; 16 probes per gene. The chip itself is subject to scratches and other anomalies so the 16 probes within a probeset get dispersed to different random locations throughout the chip. That way a scratch won't take out a whole gene (as detected by a probe set).
There are furious but friendly debates about how to best normalize and compare probes and chips. The various methods do well at certain aspects. The are still figuring out how to compensate for concentation levels, binding efficiencies and non-specific hybridization.
Langmuir Isotherm Adsorption, Neighbor effects and quantile normalization are the latest publicly released buzzwords.
At the end of the day, you've got a pretty useful tool for detecting differential expression between two samples. A simple case is a diseased sample versus a normal sample. You could get burned by thinking that a gene is getting expressed but you are really getting expression from another gene which happens to have very similar sequences so you have to be careful. You also have a problem with alternate splicing. There could be differential expression but you're not detecting it because your probeset is not matching the part of the gene that's actually being expressed.
Rergadless, at this point you've go a pretty good hint as to what's going on. We don't know what half the genes do; but we do know what some of them do. If it's a gene that makes a protein that sits on the cell surface and detects whether there's tissue next to it and it's not being expressed, then you have a problem (cancer). If you have a gene expressing like crazy but the protein it's supposed to make then you have a problem. You might want to look for a mutation on the gene. The gene just can't make the right protein.
So, clearly you've got a powerful tool for looking into the pathways of the cell to see what's going wrong. Right now, the chips are great for research; but the costs will come down and process will be simple to operate. It will enter routine medicine for diagnosis. Probably within 5 years.
Hell, they could probably have take home kits for testing blood. I can't see people doing biopsies on themselves but it could be simple procedure done by a nurse or a PA in an assembly fashion for real cheap.
So, this stuff is quite likely to come up with some big benefits for all of us.
Is because it has the word 'fucking' in it? And the granparent is a troll, why?
This is a job for Metamoderator!!
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
if it was your human infant, you may have a different concern.
Neuroendocrinol Lett. 2002 Oct-Dec;23(5-6):427-31. Related Articles, Links
DDT in human milk and mental capacities in children at school age: an additional view on PISA 2000.
Dorner G, Plagemann A.
Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Humboldt University Medical School (Charite), Schumannstrasse 20/21, D-10098 Berlin, Germany. andreas.plagemann@charite.de
OBJECTIVES: To investigate a possible lasting impact of dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT) exposure in neonatal life on mental capacities in later life. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Relationships were evaluated by correlation and regression analysis between total DDT concentrations in human breast milk in the years of birth (1984/1985) and measurements of mental capacities obtained in pupils of the PISA 2000 studies as well as percentages of backward children in Germany in 1994/95. RESULTS: Comparing total DDT levels in human milk during the years of birth (1984/85) evaluable for eleven PISA countries with assessed mental capacities of 15-year-old pupils of PISA International, a significant inverse correlation was found (p 0.001), even after adjustment for socioeconomic statuses (p = 0.001). Furthermore, a significant inverse correlation (p 0.001) was also obtained between the total DDT concentrations in human milk in 1984/85 in ten foreign countries of three continents plus fourteen Federal States of Germany and the mental capacities of 15 year-old pupils of PISA International plus PISA National (Germany) 2000. Finally, a significant positive correlation was observed between total DDT contents in human milk in 1984/85 and the percentages of backward school children in 1994/95 in Federal States of Germany (p 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: These data in association with additional experimental and epidemiological findings suggest that DDT is a "neuroendocrine disrupter" as well as a "functional teratogen" leading to harmful effects on brain development and mental capacities in later life. Thus, a neuroendocrine prophylaxis during critical developmental periods in early life as recommended by our group since many years appears to be most important for primary preventive medicine but even for "preventive pedagogics". The validity of these theses should be re-tested in future PISA studies.
However:
Environ Health Perspect. 2002 Feb;110(2):125-8. Related Articles, Links
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT): ubiquity, persistence, and risks.
Turusov V, Rakitsky V, Tomatis L.
N.N. Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Centre, Kashirskoye 24, 115478 Moscow, Russian Federation. turusov@crc.umos.ru
Due to uncontrolled use for several decades, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), probably the best known and most useful insecticide in the world, has damaged wildlife and might have negative effects on human health. This review gives a brief history of the use of DDT in various countries and presents the results of epidemiologic and experimental studies of carcinogenesis. Even though its use has been prohibited in most countries for ecologic considerations, mainly because of its negative impact on wildlife, it is still used in some developing countries for essential public health purposes, and it is still produced for export in at least three countries. Due to its stability and its capacity to accumulate in adipose tissue, it is found in human tissues, and there is now not a single living organism on the planet that does not contain DDT. The possible contribution of DDT to increasing the risks for cancers at various sites and its possible role as an endocrine disruptor deserve further investigation. Although there is convincing experimental evidence for the carcinogenicity of DDT and of its main metabolites DDE and DDD, epidemiologic studies have provided contrasting or inconclusive, although prevailingly negative, results. The presence and persistence of DDT and its metabolites worldwide are still problems of great relevance to public health. Efficient pesticides t
Did you also invent the question mark?
Yes, I know that you are kidding. I'm also familiar with the petition to ban DHMO, which garnered a substantial number of signatures.
However, you indirectly raise a real issue: efforts have been made to control the mosquito population by getting rid of swamps. It doesn't work.
The best way to control the mosquito population is to encourage the growth of dragonflies, and other predatory insects that eat mosquito larvae.
Over time, such practices as draining swamps and the use of pesticides on wetlands actually increase mosquito populations (this is the source of the recent epidemic in Africa, I believe,) because they kill off the dragon flies, and other natural predators far more effectively than they kill mosquitos - so the mosquito population may drop in the short term but if you have a wet year with no dragon flies, it skyrockets.
So - take your anti-environmentalist rhetoric and shove it.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
This could be useful as we could cure the incurable HIV virus and protect ourselves from diseases that are yet to exist. Many people complain about the side-effects, but as long as we do not go crazy and change everything with DNA, then there should be nothing to worry about.
----- Friends, l33tists, l4m3z0rs! Lend me thy keyboards.
If you're seeing this post and wondering what the hell I'm talking about then you're browsing /. with your threshold set above the troll that I replied to. Here is the parent to this message that I was replying. He added the racist remarks which I and others caught and pointed out. Remember moderators, they slashdot folks recommend you surf at a lower threshold when you have mod points to prevent these problems from happening.
We, as a society, need to detect politicians early and send them to reeducation centers until the have no more urge to be a politician.
Something cozy, like oh, Clockwork Orange.
That, and occasional whacks with a ball bat, just to make sure the cure holds.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
s/fenotype/phenotype/
This may be offensive..but its a thought that's crossed my mind more than once:
Has anyone ever considered that man is stunting our own evolution by preventing deaths of those who normally would have died in natural selection?
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
In other words, nothing yet has come of DNA research?
It also gives you no opportunity to confront those who had scorned you back in grade school/high school/college/grad school/job/life and let loose with your well deserved "Who's a loser now, huh?"
Don't get me wrong. Sure Universe destroying has it's attractions. But all in all, I'll stick with world domination, thank you very much.
As if there's anything else.
What I find odd is that the military study of genetics, etc., and their application has surely never stopped for a second since the discovery that genetic engineering could be put to tactical use. Why the recent push to popularize it in the public domain? I mean, most of the work has been done, most of the big discovieries are already in application today in the darker military hallways.
So why all the 'Spiderman' and 'X-Men' films, glorifying genetic research and DNA alterations? What is it that the Powers That Be want people to accept?
I strongly suspect that while, as always, it has to do with Money, it has also has a great deal to do with control.
-FL
Heh. Sorry, but just because you happen to work in the pharmaceutical industry, (and you're probably like many people; relatively earnest in your day to day efforts), does NOT mean that no wrong is ever committed through medical science.
I think, as the poster points out, given the human track record, it behooves us to consider very carefully how this science is used. --It's not the science, it's the organizations which plan to employ it we have to be wary of!
Just think; if corporate medicine is capable of putting Aspartame in our food, Fluoride in our water, and promotions for the use of anti-depressants in schools to control those 'difficult ADD kids' (who it has been demonstrated, are more than likely often simply reacting to the caffine and various other chemicals in their food and drink). --Not to mention anti-depressants being promoted in women's magainzes to minimize the 'unpleasant psychological effects' of menstruation. .
If corporate medicine is capable of acting in these ways, then just imagine what other sorts of horrors could be dreamed up when souless money is given access to the human gene code! --Ooops. We don't have to imagine. We just have to sit back and watch.
And what should we do about it?
Not much can be done now. --Short of hauling the heads of corporations and government out and putting them in jail forever. But this wonderful capitalist society wouldn't stand for it, I'm afraid. So that leaves you, as always, with nothing but your own conscience and free choice to work with.
Good luck!
-FL
According to the work of Robert O. Becker, the assumption that regular cells cannot dedifferentiate is in fact not just a false belief, but one which has been shored up at great expense by orthodox medicine. The phenomenon of normal cell dediferentiation, (a skin or bone cell into a 'stem' cell) can be observed at the site of tissue wounds in not just salmimanders, (which can regrow whole limbs), but in humans as well. (Who, even though they cannot, do not for extremely interesting reasons.)
Apparently, vanishingly small micro current DC electricity is used by complex organisms to tell cells what to do during various stages of growth and tissue repair. --I came upon Becker's work while reading up on Electromagnetism and its effects on human neurology.
I was blown away by what he had discovered over his long and lettered career. Becker is one of the 'real' ones. Look him up.
-FL
P.S.: This post has just been Slashdotted, so there is sure to be some lively debate on this subject over there, too. Welcome, Slashdot readers. Come back often!
Do they know what they are getting into!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Genetic research secured diabetics a reliable supply of insulin that wasn't dependent on the worlds' eating habits. (Short summary: Until the 70s, all insulin was derived from pork or beef pancreases removed at slaughterhouses. Rising numbers of diabetics and falling amounts of beef/pork being eaten spelled Bad News for diabetics sometime in the 80s or 90s. Thanks to genetic engineering (insulin-producing bacteria were the first genetically engineered organism), diabetics have a reliable supply of insulin, which as an added bonus is chemically identical to human insulin. (It was possible to develop a tolerance to beef and pork insulins over time.)
Genetic engineering has enabled the creation of "designer" insulins with effectiveness profiles not possible with human insulin. (Specifical Humalog ultra-fast-acting insulin, which peaks and leaves the system faster than natural human insulin, and Lantus "peakless" insulin, used to provide an all-day baseline dose.)
Stem cells are the next frontier in diabetes research - Some of the only cures for diabetes on the horizon rely on stem cells being used to replace destroyed beta cells in the pancreas of diabetics.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"Because those calls were rejected, millions of people around the world can now hope for DNA-based vaccines against AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases that have destroyed lives, communities and nations." GODRILLA (bad Japanese accent) GODRILLA (bad Japanese accent again) AEIIIIIEEAA!!!!! - or was that - The sky is falling! The sky is falling! "When the words never, always, everyone, and nobody are used in a statement. Ignore it." - ME
we're dressed as 70's relief pitchers.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I LOVED Angel's Revenge. I still have my Shame-O-Meter.
It's not actually his. You can tell because it doesn't feature Tori or Randy Spelling.
Bushie's popularity exploded not because of people approving of his actions but because they want to show that they weren't against their brothers, son's husband's or friends who were sent illegally overseas to fight against unarmed civilians.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
Legalize Marijuana Now!!!
The daytime soap Aaron tried to make a go of a few years ago. Randy has all of Tori's acting talent, and none of her fake body parts.
Man could be stunting his evoulution in many ways, instead of using our bodies we use our minds, we make tools to use our bodies less, soon we will be a disembodied head or big giant eye that is good at staring contests.
The "There's more Methanol in a glass of fruit juice" line is an old one, which can be traced back to Monsanto public relations. It is true in the strictest sense, but at the same time a very misleading assurance.
A paper by Dr. Woodrow Monte titled Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health-- (1984). "Aspartame: Methanol and the public health." Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol 36, No 1.) addresses this particular lie;
--Except there's no Ethanol in Pepsi.
But there are other things going on. --Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when they are not accompanied by other amino acids we use, they are neurotoxic. That is why a warning for Phenylketonurics is found on EQUAL and other aspartame products. Phenylketenurics are 2% of the population with extreme sensitivity to this chemical unless it's present in food.
And don't get me started on the whackjob nutballs and Flouride. Britain's dental situation is so bad, even they are thinking of adding flouride to try and improve their teeth.
No kidding? --Though I guess that's no surprise given Britain's political profile at the moment. --Fluoride affects awareness and willpower. (Fluoride is a component in many anti-depressant style drugs.)
Take care!
-FL
Right now, on planet earth, there is a black marked for human "spare part", in many of the poor countries people are selling parts of their anatomy the can do without. They are desperate and need the money, and people with little conscience buy and sell.
This is step in the scenario Larry Niven writes about in his books. As human skill increases, so does the ability to transplant human organs, and so the demand increases. In the end in his worlds humans when you have a death penalty its a waste of a good body to shove them in the group. So they start using the bodies of dead prisoners. The death sentence spreads to more and more regions on the planet. And the death penalty because the penalty for more and more crimes, because hey, its your own fault for doing it, right? Run a red light? Off with the head. And the organ leggers just kidnap and kill the poor bums in the street, nobody misses them right?
Of course eventually human ingenuity becomes so advanced they can clone or build replacements and the reign of Organ Leggers is over.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'm squimish about lasik. Don't make me go to Taiwan for my see-in-the-dark cat eyes.
HERE COME TEH FURRIES!!11!!1
I'm not trying to ignore the ethics debates, which are important in their own right, I just want one of those smiling, talking heads to come into my lab and maybe learn how to run a gel. Learn how to purify some plasmid DNA, know how we feel as we trudge through the boring bits just to get to the exciting data. And then understand how far we are in basic research from "curing cancer". I want someone to understand the man hours involved and what we have invested in this stuff.
You know, I don't work with human stem cell lines. I don't work with cute fluffy animals. I do happen to work in a lab which does breast cancer research, but we don't all go around wearing little pink ribbons all the time.
Tori couldn't act her way out of a pre-scored three-month soaked paper bag. Randy was her equal in every way.